Sunday, October 7, 2012

Interview in Russian Journal - Theory and Practice

Wow - so a few weeks back I was contacted by Katya Korableva a journalist working for the Russian arts-education magazine Theory & Practice to talk about my dissertation in comics. The interview with images of the work now appears on their site - entirely in Russian! Please see here for the interview with images. Katya asked some really thought provoking questions that made me have to think deeply about what I'm up to, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to share with T&P.

For those of you who can't read Russian, I've posted to text of the interview below. At the close of that interview, I posed a question about comics education projects going on in Russia. For any Russian readers coming here - I'd love to hear what's going on.
With Great thanks to Theory&Practice and Katya for the support and thoughtful interaction. A treat for me all around. - Nick

Probably the first question is the hardest, but I dare to
ask: how is your dissertation going? What are you drawing and writing right
now? Can you tell us already, when it will be published?

Good question! I’m
pleased with how it’s coming along. It’s a slow process, but I feel each page is
worth the time it takes. I’m in the middle of the second chapter, which is a
discussion of interdisciplinarity through the metaphor of how we see, and I
just finished a sequence spanning from the Copernican Revolution to the
Enlightenment. These particular pages weren’t in my original outline, but they
emerged organically in the process of making. I expect to have the entire work completed
and defend in spring of 2013.

Your dissertation illustrates beautifully a melting of
science and art. Do you hope that it becomes a new standard for theses?

Thank you. I do hope
that it helps open doors within the academic community for other visual-verbal
scholarly works, as well as other forms already in existence or
still-to-be-imagined. But I don’t see this as becoming the new standard.
Rather, I hope it contributes to raising the question of what “standard” means,
and providing an example that others will take up in their own way, by their
own means of working.

Did you have to fight for the approval process?

Actually, no. I
came to Columbia with the idea that I would do something like this. Back in
Detroit, I had made a comic book about the history, meaning, and philosophy of
games in conjunction with an art exhibition we organized there. I shared this
work with professors here when I was applying as a demonstration of the
potential for how comics could present complex ideas in an educational manner.
It was received positively, and once I got here, I began making comics for my
assignments. In fact, my primary advisor, Dr. Ruth Vinz invited me to make a
comic as the final chapter of her recent book On Narrative Inquiry. I
think as with graduate students, professors too, are hungry to see something
different in the academic realm and they’ve demonstrated strong support in believing
that this should happen.

Could you also imagine writing your dissertation in a
more convenient way?

Ha! Sure, I like to
write, I like to play with words, and I spent a lot of years writing thousands
of words per week as an arts writer back in Detroit. Writing this would definitely
take less time – but I find that I’m able to achieve something more whole in my
thinking when I draw and write together, and I’m thrilled to be engaged in that
process. I think it leads me to discoveries that I wouldn’t come upon using
text alone – which is an integral part of my argument. There have been plenty
of things written about the importance of visual thinking, but I believe we
need to “walk that talk” and actively engage in the making. To be true to what
I’m proposing, I think it’s necessary to say it in image.

Sorry, I know that everybody asks it, but when you get
the idea, do images or words come first?

My playful but
absolutely true answer to this is always: “Yes.” I can’t speak for other comics
authors, but in my case, I begin with some notion of what I want to express and
then I start to sketch out ideas in image form and text. As I play with these
very loose ideas across the space of the paper, I start to make connections,
draw associations between images, between text and image, and that leads to new
elements being added to the mix. As this continues, the idea starts to take shape
more fully. Even when I have a rough script and fairly detailed layout, I find
that the text keeps pushing me to reconsider images and what I’m drawing asks
me to alter the text. It’s a constant back and forth, right up until it reaches
some balance that satisfies my initial ethereal idea – often in a way I hadn’t
expected.

A lot of people have difficulties producing a huge
content. What helps you to stay inspired?

For me, this is
about a desire to see the ideas realized for myself and to share them with
others. I enjoy asking questions and exploring possibilities, and I find it’s
not until I’ve created the piece that I really understand things. Even when
I’ve laid out the piece (which I have done with the dissertation), there
are still surprises on every page along the way. It’s not really a matter of
filling in the details after the outline is there, but a process of ongoing
discovery that the work takes me on – and I am excited to make that journey.

Could you tell us about a course you are teaching? How
many students do you have? What are your methods of teaching?

I teach a course for
educators here at Teachers College, Columbia University on understanding,
making, and teaching comics. Most of my students are or will be teachers in
elementary and high school. So far, classes have been small enough to have a
lot of interaction between everyone but big enough to have a diversity in our
work and discussions. Although nearly all of the students in the class enter as
self-described as non-drawers and definitely non-comics makers, I have them
make comics from the first day onward. I strongly believe that we learn theory
best through practice, through the act of doing and making – and I see this
demonstrated with every piece they create. I offer them a simple comic prompt
that they work on to share in the next class. We are then able to discuss the
pieces as a group, consider why they made the choices they did and so forth. It’s
a cyclical thing – we look at example works and break down theoretical elements
of how they work and then do the same in our own works, which backs up the
theories and propels students to explore more ideas when they’re making works.
I have been consistently amazed by the compositions students (regardless of
previous drawing skills) come up with that beautifully demonstrate how comics
work at a fundamental level. Ultimately, the course builds to them thinking on
ways they’ll incorporate comics (or other aspects of visual thinking) within
their own educational setting and often some are putting these ideas into
practice even as our course is going on.

What books do you recommend to your students?

Scott McCloud’s Understanding
Comics is an absolute must. McCloud wonderfully demonstrates the ways that
comics make meaning within the medium itself. Its release in 1993 opened the
door to comics being integrated into school curriculums – through librarians
and adventurous teachers. Obviously too, Understanding Comics paved the
way for the kind of work I’m doing – for which I’m ever grateful. The book
offers terrific insights into how to think about the workings of comics, and a
great starting point to start to break down and articulate what’s happening
when you read a comic. Can’t recommend it enough.

Jessica Abel and
Matt Madden’s Drawing Words & Writing Pictures and recent sequel are
excellent textbooks for teachers and those interested in learning the craft of
comics-making from two pre-eminent thinkers in comics. Extremely useful books,
especially if one is interested in making comics. Also from Matt Madden is an amazing
book called 99 Ways to Tell a Story, in which he tells the same intentionally
mundane one-page tale 99 different ways – experimenting with form, style,
genre, and more. It’s a terrific way to think about comics-making from
practice-based means.

In class, I always
share excerpts from Alan Moore’s comics, particularly Watchmen with Dave
Gibbons. Moore and the artists he’s worked with are such masters of the
possibilities for the medium – in terms of ways the visual and verbal can
interact, in interweaving parallel stories within the same space, and much
more. It’s wonderful to think through comics theory by looking at these
examples. Alongside this, we look at comics theory in text by such scholars as
Thierry Groensteen, R.C. Harvey, and others – each one providing different
access points from which to consider comics.

In a related vein,
Chris Ware’s comics showcase the wide-open possibilities the comics medium has
for expression that make it quite distinct from text and film. David
Mazzucchelli’s book Asterios Polyp besides being an all-around beautiful
book, speaks to notions of multimodality that are being considered more
prominently in education today. Terrific examples of the use of color, shape,
font, and other tools to layer meaning. I could go on with examples that we
draw from, and that list is continually growing as I come across new works all
the time.

In one of your interviews you said, that „Comics force
you to leave out a lot and preserve empty spaces; for me at least, it’s like
having a built in editor“. It seems that nowadays the skills of editing are
becoming more and more important. Do you have any advice, how the one could
develop in himself this „built in editor“?

You never know when
a previous response will come back to haunt you… J I don’t think I can speak generally to how
someone can create their own built-in editor, but I can address how my particular
process shapes my work. In his book The Grasshopper, Bernard Suits’s defines
playing a game as “a voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles. ” I’m
quite interested in the idea of how formal constraints, rather than being a
limitation, actually stimulate unexpected discoveries. In making a comic, I’ve
agreed to adhere to certain “rules” – the size of the page, page count, and
other things – and within that constrained space, I play a game where the shape
of the piece itself shapes the content. It’s a generative conversation between
my initial notion and chosen constraints, which frequently gives rise to
something unexpected. “Built in editor” is also applicable in a more mundane
way, that is, I keep trimming words to leave more room for the images and what
emerges through this play, I find to be much more powerful than had I gone on
and on about it (like I’m doing here!).

In that interview, you also mentioned, that once you got
into trouble for drawing on the margins of your notebook during class. I think
a lot of teachers really take this activity to heart. How would you react on it
if you were a teacher at school?

I’d like to think
I’d encourage it. It certainly happens in my comics class – and I encourage it
there. I know for me, drawing was a way of paying more attention, and I’ve
heard that from other artist folks. I guess if you create a classroom
environment of respect – drawing that needs to happen, happens, and things that
are out of bounds – typically don’t.

How often do you see that some people still do not take
comics seriously and think they are only entertaining? What is the best way
trying to change their opinion?

Due to comics’
unprecedented level of acceptance as works of literature and literary tools, it
definitely occurs less than just 10 years ago – but it still happens. When I
say I’m doing a dissertation in comics form, many people assume it’s filled
with super heroes or funny animals. So for me, the best way is to hand them the
work – and then – while they may expect a quick and likely light reading
experience, they end up absorbed for a time. And then they get it. I think the
best introduction is to hand a person a comic about something they might be
interested in, and let the work speak for itself. There’s an abundance of
powerful works to get someone hooked and then exploring on his or her own from
there…

Do you think that comics as educational medium are good
for people of all ages? Are there any projects of bringing more comics to
primary and secondary schools?

Absolutely, there
are great examples out there of topics like illness narratives, gender,
history, and more being taught through comics in the university. As more people
open up to using them, there are more works for them to get their hands on. And
as the medium is more accepted, authors continually push on borders, exploring
new approaches and new types of material to express through comics. It’s an
exciting time and feels like it’s only getting better.

My sense is there
are countless initiatives for integrating comics into classrooms being
implemented and new ones popping up all the time. A few examples that I’m
familiar with include the long-running literacy-through-comics initiative The
Comic Book Project, started by Dr. Michael Bitz while a student here at
Teachers College and more recent efforts like Denver’s Comic Book Classroom (http://www.comicbookclassroom.org/).
We see educators sharing resources on using comics with their students in
online ventures like the “Making Curriculum Pop” ning organized by Ryan Goble (www.mcpopmb.ning.com), the first-hand
experience of Maureen Bakis in her book The Graphic Novel Classroom, and
more. Textbook initiatives are on the rise as well, from the adaptation of Bill
Ayers’s To Teach in comics form to the Reading with Pictures graphic
textbook, the Graphic Canon, and on and on.

Could you describe some projects you are currently
working on?

Dissertation. That
is all! Really, until this is finished and out the door, I need to stay focused
on this and do my best to turn down other projects. I have a number of things
on the docket for when I get done, but now it’s dissertation, dissertation,
dissertation, a few conferences to talk about the dissertation – and then back
to the drawing board again!

Nick, Thank you very very much for taking your time!

Thank you, Kate,
for the opportunity to think through ideas and share a bit of where I’m coming
from with your readers. If I may ask one question back to you and your readers
– I’d be really interested to learn about comics-education projects going on in
Russia?

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About Me

Nick Sousanis cultivates his creative practice at the intersection of image and text. A doctoral candidate at Teachers College, Columbia University, he is writing and drawing his dissertation entirely in comic book form. Before coming to NYC, he was immersed in Detroit’s thriving arts community, where he co-founded the arts and cultural web-mag www.thedetroiter.com; served as the founding director of the University of Michigan’s Work:Detroit exhibition space, and became the biographer of legendary Detroit artist Charles McGee. His comics have been infiltrating the academic realm through numerous publications and he furthers his advocacy for the medium in the comics course he developed for educators at Teachers College.
Contact nsousanis @ gmail.com
Tw: @nsousanis